


A Hawaiian Family Thing

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Hawaii (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-12-22
Updated: 2004-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-25 01:46:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1625012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Hawaii, all the ohana can be a bit much, especially at Christmas. Just ask Danny Edwards.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Hawaiian Family Thing

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Audra Rose

 

 

Danny Edwards had his head down on his desk, face buried in his arms.

"Hey, man." Kaleo's footsteps stopped next to him, but he didn't bother to raise his head. A moment passed, then a heavy hand thumped between his shoulder blades. "Rough night again, huh, brah?"

He grunted, and Kaleo finally took the hint and moved off to his place behind the sergeant's desk. Other people moved around the bullpen; every few minutes someone would pause near him. He heard the occasional "Detective Edwards?" muttered nearby, and he felt their curiosity burning the back of his head, but he wasn't in the mood to give a damn. He ignored them all until he heard certain footsteps coming through the door and a certain voice exchanging greetings around the room.

When he heard something plunk onto the desk across from his, Danny jerked upright and fixed the full brunt of his annoyance on his partner. His partner, the traitor. "Well, nice of you to join us, Detective Gains."

Chris Gains froze with his hand in the air over his desk, a bright red shopping bag dangling from his fingers just above the matching one that had already dropped. "We got a hot case I forgot about? Or is it just your time of month?"

"Oh, funny, coming from you." Danny leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. "You know, I used to think that the whole point of having a partner was to have someone you could count on to watch your back."

Chris rolled his eyes, but he looked a little guilty, and Danny had every intention of wringing every last bit of guilt out of him that he could. "Man, I told you I had to do some Christmas shopping. They were only going to hold my mom's dress until ten this morning, and we were doing paperwork until ten last night."

"Yeah? And then?" Chris prompted. "What were you supposed to do then?"

"Hey, look." Chris held up a hand, but he took a step back when Danny narrowed his eyes at him. "I said I might go. Might."

"You said you would go. No mights. I told Leesa you'd be there, and then I looked like a jackass when you didn't show."

"You're the one trying to lay this chick. What the hell do I have to be there for?" Chris pulled a mass of sparkly red fabric out of one of the bags. "My mom's gonna love this. What do you think?"

"She'll look fabulous at the Christmas lu'au. And don't change the subject."

"You only met my mom the one time, and by the way, she's heartbroken that you turned down her invitation to the family party again this year."

He winced from the unexpected jab of his own guilt. Chris adored his family, which was large, mostly female, and had hospitably made gestures to swallow Danny into itself as a second son. Reasonably, he had run and never gone back. "Dude, your family's great, you know I think so. It's just, that many of you in one place? My heart can't take it."

Chris pulled out his chair, dropped into it, then leaned across the desk and stared at him.

"Okay," Danny hedged. "It's your sister."

"I knew it!" Chris flopped back in his chair and jabbed a finger in the air. "Bro, she's my baby sister. You can't be scared of her."

He wasn't, particularly, but his anxieties needed a face, and if Melly Gains had to take a hit, well, odds were good she'd never find out about it anyway. "She followed me to the bathroom last time you brought her in here."

"She's fifteen, and she thinks you're Eddie Aikau reincarnated. You ought to be flattered."

"Quit trying to distract me." He shook his head and tried to resume his glare. "I was counting on you. You said you'd be there, and you weren't."

"Okay, I'm sorry." Chris ducked his head and gave Danny an abashed look. It wasn't that Gains could pull that off, because he really couldn't, but Danny felt himself losing the argument even before Chris kept talking. "I didn't think you were really serious about me coming. I figured it was a pity thing, 'cause I haven't had a date in a while."

"No, I wanted you there because just when I was about to get the green light, Leesa's cousin from Seattle came to visit. Now I'm not getting any unless she does."

His partner's face went blank in the way that meant Danny probably should have rephrased that last sentence before it actually came out of his mouth. "You're whoring me out now?"

"All you gotta do is show up, have a drink, and drive her home later."

Chris narrowed his eyes. "This is the ugly cousin, isn't it?"

"This is not the ugly cousin, I promise you."

"Then why can't she get her own date?"

"She's got curly hair and big blue eyes, and all her curves are in exactly the right places."

That got him another odd look, but the look turned canny before he could define it. "Okay. We can deal. I make you happy, you make my mom happy."

"Okay, no. No deal." Danny shook his head back and forth, then back again for emphasis. "I know what I want to be doing on Christmas, and it does not involve a single member of your family."

"Thank God," Chris retorted, and pretended to start reading the file in front of him. "Don't do it on Christmas, or don't do it at all. Up to you, man."

Danny started to curse, but bit it off when he turned his head and noticed their audience. Sean Harrison looked like he was trying not to laugh, while his partner John Declan was trying not to look at anything but the open folder in his hands. Danny had mostly forgiven Declan for stealing Linh Tamiya practically out of his bed, but at certain moments his ego wounds flared back up. "What the hell are you looking at?" he snapped.

"Nothing, man," Harrison answered, though he was still smirking more than he had a right to be. "Just wondering if you two were going to be up for any actual police work today."

"What's going on?" Chris turned to the other two detectives, and Danny felt the instant he lost his partner's full attention. With greater effort, he also focused on Declan, who was still scanning the folder he was holding.

"We're trying to get a lead on these two brothers from Haleiwa," Declan said and passed the folder to Danny. "We think they may be able to give us a pretty good idea of who's behind those two restaurant shootings last month."

"Running scared?" Chris asked while Danny looked at the file.

"That's what it looks like," Harrison said. "We're pretty sure they weren't directly involved, but we think one of them sold the gun used in both shootings, and now he and his buddy there are unreachable. We just want to see what they know."

"You guys got any contacts that could help?" Declan was watching Linh from across the bullpen, but for once Danny barely noticed.

"Hell, yeah, we do," he said and grinned.

"We do?" Chris craned his neck to see the folder.

"We do. And now you're going to have to come with me tonight." He stood up, dropped the folder in front of his partner and tapped one of the snapshots clipped to the top. "Because that, my friend, is Leesa's ugly cousin."

* * *

"You never told me you met this chick through a case." Chris gripped his beer and slid it back and forth across the bar. He looked much less happy than Danny thought was called for, considering he was getting paid to be there. Danny wasn't going to bring that up, though; revisiting the male whore debate wasn't going to make Chris any better company.

"Wasn't our case," he said instead, then jogged Chris's arm when the door opened and two women walked in. The first was sexy with her long dark hair, glowing bronze skin, and a very tight blouse and very short skirt; just behind her came a slighter, fairer woman in an equally tight blouse, and a skirt just as short. They were breathtaking. "Look, there they are. Now tell me again that I did you wrong."

"We'll see," Chris answered, but his gaze seemed riveted to the women approaching them, and he did not look displeased.

Leesa's smile made his blood rush as she spotted him. "Hey, handsome."

"Hey, gorgeous." Danny slid off his bar stool and pulled Leesa against him as soon as she got within arm's reach. "You look amazing, baby," he said, enjoying the feel of her leather skirt against his groin and her heavy hair brushing his cheek.

She pulled back to eye him up and down, then her caramel cheek dimpled again under her grin. "Not bad from here, either. And this must be the elusive Christopher Gains."

"Yeah, sorry. Chris, this is Leesa and her cousin - okay, I see you've already met Julene."

Chris straightened up, gave Leesa a distracted smile and a little wave, then bent back to his murmured conversation with Julene. Leesa returned a bemused flutter of her fingers to the back of Chris's head.

"See," Danny said. "I told you they'd hit it off."

"I was starting to think you were making him up, or that you didn't think Jules was good enough for him after all," she said, running her bronze-tipped fingernail along his neck just inside his collar.

"I don't think I could make Gains up if I tried," he answered and held up his hand to the bartender. The evening would finally go as planned: he'd buy her as many rum and diet Cokes as she wanted; she'd get a little drunk and a lot playful; he'd finally get laid. "And what are you talking about? Julene looks almost as smoking as you do."

That was no lie, either. He took a quick glance over at them again, this time focusing on Julene: the same heart-shaped face as Leesa, the blue eyes and lighter skin she'd gotten from her white mainland father, the husky voice and the black outfit she was working like a second skin. With every breath she was signaling that Chris might not be as safe from molestation as Danny had promised him.

Not that Chris seemed like he was going to mind much. Judging from his attentive laughter and the way he kept his head bent close to Julene's, as though to block out everything else in the noisy bar, Chris was an active participant in his own seduction. This was the best case scenario Danny could have hoped for, with a mind toward future evenings.

Still, Chris wasn't supposed to like her quite that much.

"Danny? Hello?" Leesa had made it to her second rum and diet Coke without him noticing, but fortunately, she only seemed amused by his distraction. "What's the matter? Can't decide which one of us you want after all?"

"What?" He gaped in shock, his stomach flipping.

"It's okay." She laughed and squeezed his arm before sliding her fingers down to wrap around his. "She's a hot girl. I don't blame you for looking."

"Oh. Yeah." Of course. What the hell was he thinking?

She leaned in, as close as Chris was to Julene; her nose rubbed against his jaw and her breath rushed in his ear. "It's okay," she said again. "I'm glad you like her so much."

"You are? Why?" He was getting even more confused, tonight of all nights, in an arena where he had only slightly less confidence than when he was on the streets with his badge and his partner.

"Oh, let's not talk about it yet." She kissed him finally, slow and promising and distracting.

And for another hour and a half, they didn't talk about it. Eventually Chris and Julene moved to a vacant booth that was frustratingly out of Danny's line of sight. He held out at least fifteen minutes by his count before looking over his shoulder.

Leesa put a hand to his face and guided him back to look at her. "Come on, don't offend me here, Daniel."

He bridled at that, though whether it as at his own gaffe, her possessiveness, or the name, he wasn't sure. "Sorry. Gotta make sure he's behaving himself."

"I don't think she wants him to," Leesa said, and sure enough, Julene was smiling. Her unnaturally long eyelashes fluttered. Her glaring red lips pursed into a little moue, coming dangerously close to his partner's mouth.

"So," he said, pulling his mind and his eyes back to his other, more temporary, partner before he ruined his own chances entirely. "Have plans for Christmas?"

"Of course. We're having the usual huge family thing - only even huger this year, because of Julene being here."

"Of course. Family thing. Yeah, me, too." His hopes for a long day off with nothing to do but stay in bed evaporated before his eyes. He might as well go into work, get some paperwork done, let some poor uniform go home to his fucking family. Then he'd harass Chris on his cell every half hour, and it'd be just like last year. "Hey, speaking of family, can I ask you something about yours?"

"Yeah, sure."

"What's your cousin Jerome been up to lately?"

Her eyes narrowed, and her caress of his bicep slowed. "Jerome? Why?"

"We think he sold a gun to some people we need to find."

"Is he in trouble?"

"No, no," he said, deciding not to add the mental at least not yet onto the end of the statement. "We just want to talk to him, see if he remembers who bought the gun."

She still pinned him with a dubious gaze, and he tried to look sincere. Chris was better at that. "So is this why you're taking me out? To ask about Jerome?"

"God, no. It's not even our case." He slid his arm around her shoulders, drew her back against his body until she relaxed again. "I just said I'd ask you, see if you'd do us a favor and get in touch with him, let him know we want his help."

"And he won't be in trouble?"

"No way. In fact, he might be eligible for a reward if he gives us the information we need."

She smiled up at him. "Okay, lover boy. I'll call Jerome tonight. But I want to ask you for something, too."

"Anything, baby."

"You and your partner are pretty close, yeah?"

"Sure," he said, then knowing he'd score extra Hawaiian brownie points for what was only the truth, "He's like family."

She was almost in his lap now, her perfume making his nostrils flare. "Have you ever shared a woman before?"

He knew he must have stared at her for much longer than was cool, but she just looked up at him calmly and toyed with the buttons on his shirt. "A woman," he croaked at last. "Chris and me?"

"I'm taking that as a no," she said, but didn't seem bothered by either the answer or his total lack of composure. "Would you like to?"

"Would we like to share a woman?" he said, then cursed himself for continued idiocy. "Share... you, you mean?"

"Two women, actually. That's more what we had in mind."

His head jerked around again to look at Julene, who had her head tilted just enough to watch him and Leesa while Chris whispered something in her other ear. She gave Danny a little smile, then licked her lips.

"Both of you," he said.

"And both of you." Leesa smiled, and he wondered why he wasn't already composing his letter to Penthouse. "You up for that?"

He stared at her for another moment, images of him and Chris and two hot babes tumbling through his mind. "I... um." He cleared his throat. "I'll go talk to Chris."

Her smile widened. "Do that. I'll be here."

She moved back to her own bar stool; when her warm weight left his side, his mind cleared enough to wonder if he really wanted to do this. But when he wobbled to his feet and turned to see Chris practically making out with the girl in the booth, his mind was made up for him. He made his way to them, feeling Leesa's gaze burn his back all the way over.

"Gains," he said, and his throat was dry enough that his partner didn't even seem to hear him. "Gains."

Julene certainly knew he was there, and she nudged Chris to get his attention, smiling encouragement at Danny. He felt the trap seal shut around him; a part of him was glad for it, since it was easier to feel like he didn't have a choice.

"What?" Chris said, pissily enough to make Danny debate the wisdom of even suggesting this, let alone getting into a bed with him.

"I need to talk to you for a second," he said anyway, and jerked his head for Chris to follow him.

"Excuse me for a minute, honey?" Chris lingered on Julene's lips for a moment before standing up. "Police business."

"Is that what we're calling it?" she teased while Danny thought, _honey?_

They picked through the crowd to the relative quiet of the payphone alcove next to the restrooms. "So, will she talk to her cousin?" Chris asked as soon as they stopped.

"I'm pretty sure she already did," he said, then shook his head when he realized his fumble. "No, forget about that for a minute."

"Forget about it? It's the reason I'm here at all. What the hell is wrong with you?"

"No, listen for a second."

Chris listened. "You are out of your mind," he said when Danny was done, but a gleam in the back of his eyes hinted that he might be willing to follow Danny into the insanity, like he followed him everywhere else, if Danny played his cards right.

"Come on. It's like all the crazy college fantasies you never got to fulfill because you were too much of a goody two-shoes."

"Hey, I was never a goody two-shoes." Chris's indignation flared and died, leaving him serious in a way that said Danny had misjudged his tactics yet again. "Look, I'm not being a goody two-shoes or anything. I'm not. It's just that this isn't some drunken college thing. If we do this, it's... something serious."

He wanted to mock and prod and tease Chris about being spooked and girly until his partner agreed just to shut him up. "I know," he said instead. "I know it's serious. I wouldn't ask you unless... unless it was something I really wanted to do. Only with you."

Chris kept looking at him, and Danny felt himself weighed like he hadn't been since their first case together. "Okay," Chris finally said. "Then we'll do it."

"We'll do it," Danny repeated.

* * *

They took Danny's car, because it was sexier, and they went to Danny's apartment, because his bed was bigger. The girls were a little drunk, and thank God, so were they by that point.

It was strangely not strange at all to fall into bed with Chris, though it should have been, even with two girls between them. It wasn't strange to hand Chris a condom, and it wasn't strange to see the smooth line of Chris's naked body at the other end of the bed.

It was a little strange to still be wet with one girl while another one crawled on top of him, but that could hardly be called a bad thing. The strangest thing, the one thing he couldn't get past, didn't happen until the night was almost over.

That was when he was on top of Leesa, buried deep in the girl he had actually meant to fuck tonight, and he made the crucial mistake of looking over at Chris. Chris was on his back, Julene riding him into sweaty bliss. He looked back at Danny over the foot and a half of rumpled bedspread separating them, and he grinned. Danny grinned back, and when Chris lifted his hand for a frat boy high-five, Danny reached out to meet his hand.

He hadn't expected their fingers to interlace and not let go.

He hadn't expected his body to convulse in immediate orgasm just from the touch of Chris's hand on his.

And he hadn't expected to keep touching Chris until Julene flopped over onto the bed between them, breaking their connection.

He didn't look at Chris afterwards, while the girls giggled and burrowed into the blankets. He waited until the only sounds in his bedroom were the even, slumbering breaths of his companions, then he got up silently and went into the bathroom and locked the door.

Sitting bare-assed on the cold toilet seat cover turned out not to be the most conducive setting for the dramatic freak-out he was expecting to have. He stayed there for a long time, waiting for some grand realization to hit him about what had just happened. He was almost disappointed when nothing happened before he started to feel silly.

Chris was sitting on the side of the bed, wearing boxers and a fretful expression. He looked up when Danny came out. "Do you want me to leave?" he asked, the necessary whisper making his voice sound more plaintive than Chris ever sounded about anything.

Danny knew what the answer had to be. "No," he said and shook his head. If Chris left, their friendship would be changed with the acknowledgment that what they'd just experienced was wrong. He'd lose the best partner he ever had; he'd never find out why he came when they touched. "No, stay. Your car's at the bar anyway - what are you going to do, walk home?"

"I could drive yours." Chris grinned, and just like that, the balance between them was restored, changed but intact.

"Keep dreaming," Danny snorted and shooed Chris back to his side of the bed.

They lay still after that, but Danny didn't close his eyes. He watched the curve of Chris's back, outlined in the light from the window, and wondered why he was watching, until he felt the light scrape of feminine nails on his chest.

"I'm glad you're awake," Leesa said, and not long after, they were all awake again.

This time, he was aware of his outflung hand, and he didn't pull it back when it touched Chris's arm. Nor did he pull back when Chris's leg sprawled over onto his side of the bed and stayed brushing against his leg, calf to shin, for longer than it should have. Then Leesa rolled him into the middle of the bed and his bare skin slid in long, damp strokes against Chris's side, and it was exactly what he needed to come.

He slept like the dead until the smell of bacon woke him. Chris, showing him up, was making breakfast.

* * *

After promising to meet again for dinner that night, they left the chatter to Leesa and Julene while Danny drove them all back to the bar to pick up their cars. He was back at his desk, staring at an open file, when Chris came in. "Hey," he said, absent and casual.

"You're reading that upside down," Chris said as he went around Danny's desk to get to his own.

"Fuck."

He looked up accidentally and caught the silent question in Chris's face. _You okay?_

Probably not.

_You wanna talk about it?_

Hell, no. But I really want to try it again.

A grin broke out across Chris's face, slow and satisfied. Danny looked away, abrupt with annoyance at giving himself away, with embarrassment at having something like this to give. Like he fucking needed any of this. All he'd asked for was an easy lay, not an identity crisis. And why the hell was Chris so okay with all of this, unless it wasn't significant to him at all?

"Hey, man." Harrison ambled up, clutching an oversized mug of coffee that Danny could have cheerfully killed him for, except that Declan appeared over his shoulder a moment later. He wasn't sure he could take the two of them this morning, and Chris probably wasn't going to help.

"Any luck talking to your girl?" Declan gave Danny a conspiratorial grin, obviously meant to convey the mutual lack of hard feelings over the thing with Linh.

Danny returned a glare meant to convey that he could resurrect the hard feelings any time he wanted. This could well be Declan's fault entirely, if you broke down the sequence of events. If Declan hadn't seduced Linh away with his ridiculous shows of flattery, she'd still be with Danny. If she were still with Danny, he wouldn't have been going after Leesa. If he hadn't been going after Leesa, he'd never have ended up anywhere near a bed with his partner, and he could have continued his life happily having nothing but heterosexual thoughts in his head. Damn Declan.

"She left a message for Jerome last night," Chris said. "We're hoping he'll come in today."

"Cool." Harrison took a swig of his coffee, then sprayed it over Danny's desk as the entire building shuddered with the concussive force of a nearby explosion.

"What the hell?" Declan shouted as Danny jumped to his feet and ran to the door, Chris a half-step behind him.

They ran straight into a billow of black smoke. Danny coughed and waved the smoke away from his face as best he could. Squinting, he could just make out Kaleo's bulky form coming toward them.

Kaleo grabbed Chris's shoulder. "Dude," he said, hoarse but loud to be heard over the crackling of fire and people shouting. "Is that your car?"

"What?" Chris said, already pushing past Kaleo. Danny followed, until they got upwind and realized that it was Chris's car at the center of the smoke, flames licking the jagged glass remnants around the edge of the shattered windshield. "Oh, no. No. What the fuck is this? Hell, no!"

"Oh, my God," was all Danny could get out of his mouth. He reached out and managed to catch Chris's shoulder before he could get any closer to the fire. "Oh, my God."

"My mom's dress was in there!" Chris shook off Danny's hand, but fortunately paced away from the car.

"We'll get another one." Of course Chris would be more upset about that than his car. Danny could almost understand it - after all, the car was a piece of junk, and it's not like Chris took care of it, anyway.

"No, we won't. There isn't another one her size on the entire island." Chris punched the air, almost spinning in place, and Danny had to catch him by both shoulders this time to make sure he stayed in the safe zone.

"We'll check the other islands, then. And we'll catch whoever did this. Just chill out, okay?"

Chris showed no signs of chilling as the morning went on, and Danny was just as wound up. He couldn't even appreciate the view when Linh leaned over Chris's desk, taking his statement.

"You sure there's no one out to get you?" she was saying.

"No more than there usually is." Chris had his elbows on his desk, hands clutching his head, in mourning for his perfect Christmas gift.

"We piss a lot of people off," Danny added, and Linh turned to him with a sardonic quirk of her lip.

"You don't say?" she said, then looked back to Chris. "Okay, don't worry about it. Whoever this okole puka is, he forgot we have cameras outside. They're going over it now, and then we'll have his ass."

"Thanks, Linh." Chris tried to smile, but he looked too depressed to carry it off.

"Come on." Danny stood up, unable to stand it for another minute. "It's almost lunch time anyway. We'll go find your mom another dress."

"I don't know, man." Chris was not a man who was meant to look like a kicked puppy, but he'd probably do it around here more often if he knew how effective it was, even on the people who knew him.

"I know nothing's going to be the same as your one perfect dress, but you gotta give her something, right?"

"Yeah." Chris sighed and lumbered to his feet, and Danny had a moment to wonder if this degree of devastation was entirely genuine. "Yeah, you're right. We should go."

* * *

When they got to the mall, "Mele Kalikimaka" was playing over the loudspeakers like it always was, and half a dozen squat grandmothers nearly bowled Danny off his feet with their shopping bags as he came through the door. "God, I hate this place at Christmas," he muttered.

"Who doesn't?" Chris said, though he seemed in a much more cheerful frame of mind. "But you have to work off your karmic debt to my mother."

"My karmic debt? Excuse me, I wasn't the one who threw a firebomb into your car."

"No, but you've pissed off a lot more people than I have this year, brah. We're going to get a call any second now with the news that this was all your fault."

Well, that was probably true, but he cast his partner a dirty look anyway. "Let's just get this over with, okay? Where'd you get that dress?"

"Doesn't matter. They're out of them."

"I don't care. It's somewhere to start."

The store was creatively called Island Design, though Danny thankfully noted a lack of muumuus as they walked in. He was not so thankful to note a lack of almost anything on the racks. Apparently, Island Design was the Hot Topic of the over-fifty Hawaiian set.

One saleswoman, her face drooping with weariness, approached them. She brightened when she spotted Chris. "You again, honey?" she said as she bustled up to them. "No flaw in the dress, I hope. Holiday sale, no refunds."

"No, Auntie," Chris replied with a familiarity that showed he'd been spending way too much time in here lately. "The dress is fine."

"No, it isn't," Danny interjected. "It's in a million sparkly shreds all over the station parking lot."

The woman clapped her hand to her mouth. "Oh, good Lord!"

"It's okay, nobody was hurt," Chris said with a glare in Danny's direction. "But I need another dress for my mom."

She looked no less horrified at that pronouncement. "Oh, honey, we have almost nothing left." She waved her hands around at the picked-over racks and shelves. "You know how it gets right before Christmas."

Danny looked the woman up and down. She was the same height as Chris's mom, and roughly the same shape. Chris was looking, too; their eyes met over the top of her head.

"Well," Chris said, resuming his hangdog expression. "I'll just look around and see if there's anything else she might like. I don't think anything will make her smile like that dress, though."

"Oh, dear," the saleswoman sighed, and Danny put his hand on her shoulder, guiding her away as Chris began to wander between the racks.

"Listen," he said in a low voice. "He really loved that dress."

"I know, I know." She patted his hand. "Everyone did. That's why we have no more."

"And he really loves his mom," Danny went on without pause. "He wanted to buy her the perfect dress so she'd look so pretty at the family lu'au."

They reached the sales counter, and the woman went around to her side of it. Danny, who had a good bit of experience dealing with criminals, if not sales clerks, knew the signs of a guilty conscience when he saw them: the slight twitch around the eyes, the thinning lips, the strain in her voice as she said, "I really wish I could help. I could check the stockroom, maybe, but...."

Yes, they were definitely on the right track. Danny raised his voice to carry across the store. "How's it going, bro?"

"Not so good, cuz." Chris's voice drifted back from behind a rack of flowery cloth. "There's nothing in her size at all. I may just have to get her a muumuu."

"Oh, no, man, not a muumuu." Danny leaned over the counter to get right on the saleswoman's eye level. "Christmas is going to be ruined if he gets her a muumuu. You have to help us out."

"I wish...."

"You must have something in the back," he pressed, then decided to go for broke. "Another red one. Maybe somebody asked for one and forgot to pick it up. Maybe... maybe you put one aside yourself?"

"I told you-" she started, but her little guilty look told him that he had hit his mark dead on, and she slowly wilted under his chiding stare. "Maybe. I suppose I could check."

"Oh, could you?" Danny straightened up. "Chris! She might have another one of the red ones!"

"Really?" Chris bounded to his side an instant later. "Oh, Auntie, you've saved Christmas."

"I just said I'd check," she said, holding up her hands and backing away. "I can't promise anything."

Danny bent forward again, leaning on the counter. "He'll pay double whatever the price is."

"Excuse me?" Chris rounded on him, and Danny stood up to meet him.

"Do you want your mom to cry on Christmas?" he demanded in his best suspect-breaking voice.

"No," Chris muttered, jaw twitching.

"Then you'll pay this nice woman whatever she asks for helping your sorry ass." He turned his head to see if she was going for it, and caught the back of her head as she vanished through the door marked "employees only." He grinned. "Got her."

"I'll pay double?" Chris hissed. "What the hell, man?"

Well, at least something could get Chris upset, even if sexual orientation issues didn't. "You want the dress or not?"

"Yeah, but I don't want to pay three times for it!" His scowl turned back to a smile when the saleswoman emerged with a hanger sticking up out of what looked like a trash bag. "Oh, is that what I think it is?"

"It sure is, mea meli." She beamed and held it up so that Danny could see the sparkly red hem swishing out from under the plastic. "The only one left on the island, I guarantee you that."

"I believe you," Danny said, even though he didn't really. But he didn't care as long as Chris got his gift and they didn't have to spend another minute in this place. "Pay the woman, Chris."

Chris pulled out his wallet and started to pull out a credit card, but Danny put his hand out to stop him. "What now?" Chris said.

"Come on, man. It's got to be cash." Convenient that he knew Chris had just been to the ATM, in preparation for going out again tonight.

"Cash?" Chris said, and this time his dismay sounded genuine even to Danny. But he opened up his wallet and counted out the money, wincing a little as each bill hit the counter.

The saleswoman was counting along with him. When the last bill appeared, she beamed and handed Chris the dress. "Such sweet boys. Such a pleasure having your business."

"Yeah, I bet it is," Chris muttered even as he smiled and waved at the woman, who was counting the cash again.

"Mele Kalikimaka, boys," she called after them as they left the store.

"Definitely for her it is," Danny said, and laughed at his partner's renewed scowl. "And don't say I never did anything for your mom. Now let's see this amazing dress that everybody and their mother has to -"

He caught a face out of the corner of his eye. It was just a glimpse, but he knew that he knew it.

Chris had started to lift the plastic covering the dress; he paused when Danny stopped talking. "What's wrong?"

"Ten o'clock. Don't be obvious."

His partner's eyes darted to the left. "Hey, isn't that our guy?"

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure."

"You think he's trying to make contact?"

"Maybe." But something in the way the guy was fidgeting made his instincts jangle with alarm.

"Yeah. I don't think so, either."

"Maybe we should make contact with him."

Chris nodded, then turned and started toward the man, who was trying to look inconspicuous next to a potted palm. "Hey, Jerome!" he called, lifting his free hand in a friendly wave. "Hey, cuz, we've been looking all over for you."

The guy looked at them, spooked, and took off toward the exit. "Guess he didn't get Leesa's message," Danny muttered, and pulled his badge out from under his shirt before following Chris in pursuit of the fleeing Jerome.

Dodging through the midday shopping crowd, they lost sight of Jerome as he pelted out the automatic doors. When they made it out a few seconds later, they paused on the sidewalk in front of the parking lot.

"Damn. Where'd he go?" Chris looked around, the dress still swinging from his arm. They probably looked like a couple of ridiculously inept shoplifters, except for the badges around their necks.

Danny's back pocket rang; he pulled out his phone and flipped it open. "Edwards."

"It was a firebomb that took out your partner's car," Harrison's voice informed him without preamble. "Really amateur work."

"No shit, Sherlock," Danny said. "Did you get an I.D. on the perp?"

"We did, clear as daylight. You'll never guess."

"Danny!" Chris's hand touched his chest, and he automatically followed his partner's gaze. "By your car."

"Oh, I think I can guess," Danny said, and snapped the phone shut. "Hey!"

There was Jerome, sprinting past Danny's car and past his buddy from the other photo in Declan's folder. The other guy was clutching what looked like a really amateur firebomb in one hand and was desperately flicking a cigarette lighter in the other.

Cold fear washed through Danny's chest. It was one thing to take out Chris's junk heap of a car, but hell no, not his baby. "Get away from my fucking car, you motherfucker!"

"Freeze! Police!" Chris yelled just behind him.

They were three yards away when the guy finally gave up and hurled the shoddy bomb at Danny's head before running after Jerome. He ducked it easily, and it broke apart harmlessly on the asphalt. "That's deadly assault on a police officer, asshole!" he yelled.

The guy kept running, but a minute later it didn't matter. They hit the wall - a seven-foot wall on the far end of the parking lot. Stupid criminals were always the ones who couldn't build proper explosives and couldn't avoid even the most obvious walls. It was hardly worth Danny's time to tackle them, but he slammed into Jerome's back anyway, aware of Chris taking down the other guy at the same instant.

Jerome fought and swore, and Danny threw him back against the wall. "We just wanted to talk, asshole," he panted, fumbling for his handcuffs while restraining the struggling man against the wall with his body weight. "You couldn't just talk to us."

"Honi ko'u ule, haole," Jerome spat over his shoulder.

"Hey, is that any way to talk? We're practically family now, since I fucked two of your cousins last night."

That had about the effect he expected, but he was already snapping on the handcuffs. Chris had his guy by the arms. "Don't make it any worse for yourself," he was saying, then looked over at Danny. "What do you think?"

"I think maybe we shouldn't mention this over dinner," Danny said, then shoved Jerome to the ground.

* * *

They didn't mention it over dinner, which seemed like an even better idea after Harrison and Declan had had Jerome and his friend in interrogation for a few hours and were about ready to conclude that the pair had committed the shootings themselves. There was no point in jeopardizing their chances of repeating last night because of some awkward dinner conversation.

And sure enough, no sooner had the check come than Leesa smiled and drained her wine glass. "Well, boys? Shall we?"

Chris had his eyes and his hand on Julene, but his knee pressed against Danny's under the table. "I'm ready for dessert if you are."

Danny finished off his beer, wondering if he should have been drinking something stronger, now that he knew what he was getting into. But when they got back to his place, the buzz was more than enough to get him down to his underwear and into bed with his companions as undressed as he was.

He had his hand in Leesa's bra and his tongue deep in her mouth. Chris ended up sandwiched between Leesa and Julene again, and while he was paying Julene all due attention, his toes stroked Danny's ankle. The position suited Danny fine; he pushed his leg between Leesa's stocking-clad thighs until he felt Chris there. The touch of masculine and feminine combined made his skin prickle with the need for more.

"Dammit. I think that's my cell phone." Leesa was rolling over him and out of bed before he registered the change in her movement.

"Oh, come on. You're kidding me," he called after her as she went out into the living room in search of her purse. "Don't you have voice mail?"

"That's her mom's ring," Julene said, crawling over Chris to stretch out in Leesa's space. "She can't not get it."

"Sure," Chris said into the back of her neck as he turned to face them.

She smiled and pulled them both to her. "You'll just have to settle for me until she gets back."

"That's not really a hardship," Danny said, his voice going hoarse from the way Chris's dark eyes studied his face before moving down his body. It was too much, and he bent his head to kiss Julene; his hand slid over her waist to her back where it met Chris's hand undoing her bra.

Julene sighed and plastered herself against Danny, her full breasts coming free against his chest, letting him press his arousal into damp satin. She reached behind her to pull Chris against her back. "God, both of you," she breathed. "Exactly what I wanted."

"Me, too, honey," Chris whispered into her ear, and his hand slid over her to linger against the bare skin of Danny's torso. Danny responded with a kiss to Julene's neck, letting his nose brush against Chris's. He sighed with desire and fear; the gust of Chris's breath against his mouth made his whole body tense with a fuck or flee reaction he didn't know what to do with.

Then long nails dug into his shoulders, and he found himself flat on his back at the edge of the bed. He saw Leesa standing above him, but barely had time to register the fury in her expression before his cheek was stinging with her slap. "You son of a bitch!" she yelled. "You used me!"

I didn't mean to, he tried to say, but his mouth opened without sound. I didn't even know until last night.

"Hey, cut it out." Chris was on his knees and leaned over to grab Leesa's wrist before she could attack again. "What are you even talking about?"

She pulled free and shoved him back. "You promised Jerome wouldn't be in trouble. You said you just wanted to talk to him, and you used me to lure him."

"Oh, boy," Danny muttered, sitting up and rubbing his cheek. "Look, Leesa, there's a lot you don't know-"

His other cheek rang with her slap. "I know my cousin's in jail because of you."

"He blew up Chris's car!" Danny protested and rubbed both sides of his face. He knew she wasn't going to take this well, but it wasn't like he had chosen her family for her. "And then he and his buddy tried to blow up my car."

"That isn't murder," she hissed. "Your friends charged them with first degree murder. Mom said they can't even get bail."

So Declan and Harrison had enough to make charges stick. He had been hoping it wouldn't come to that; he could see his social life dissolving before his eyes.

"Hey, we're sorry this happened like this," Chris was saying, but Leesa grabbed Julene's wrist and pulled her over Danny and out of the bed.

"Don't try any more of your bullshit on us," she said, snatching up their fallen clothing as Julene struggled to refasten her bra. "In fact, don't even try to come near either of us again, or you'll find out what the rest of my family is like."

"Can we at least call you a cab?" Chris called as she dragged Julene out of the room, but the slamming of the front door was the only answer he got.

"Damn." Danny flopped back onto his pillow with an arm across his eyes. "There goes the evening."

Beside him, Chris shifted, and then his long fingers clasped Danny's other wrist. "Why?"

Slowly, he turned his head until he met Chris's eyes. "You can't be serious," he managed to say, though his mouth was almost too dry.

"Why not? We don't need them." Chris slid his hand down until their fingers met. Danny let him, and that was the moment he knew. "When have we ever needed anybody else but us?"

"No," Danny said. He let his arm drop from his face, let himself turn to face his partner. "We've never needed anyone else."

Chris wound their fingers more tightly together and tugged Danny closer. Their feet and ankles got tangled together, and then Chris's mouth was on Danny's shoulder. The wetness, the softness, the bristle of Chris's short facial hair made Danny shudder like he hadn't since the first time he jerked off over stolen porn.

Then the bristle rubbed against his jaw, and when he felt it at the corner of his mouth, his body stiffened without arousal. "What?" Chris muttered against his cheek. "What is it?"

"I don't know if I can do this," he muttered back, even though his hand still gripped Chris's fingers in a tight squeeze.

"Sure you can," Chris said easily, his free hand coming to rest on Danny's hip. "It can't be that complicated."

"You're awfully calm," Danny sniped, but the stroke of Chris's fingers on the waistband of his shorts was making his heart speed up again, this time in the good way. "Is there something about you I don't know?"

"I don't think there's much about me you don't know at this point." Chris let his fingertips play under the waistband for a moment before drifting back up Danny's spine. "And I don't know any more about this than you do. But I want to figure it out. Can we do that?"

They had always been pretty good at figuring things out, since the day they met at the station. That was why they were partners, and that was why his answer was easier than he expected it to be. "Yeah," he said. "We can do that."

This time when Chris's hand came down to Danny's waist, Danny let him push down farther, easing his shorts down until he kicked them off. This time when Chris turned his face to him, Danny met him. The heat of their mouths was so good, and so wrong, and it built the heat in his body until he didn't care about much other than stripping Chris's underwear off so they could get on with it.

Then they found another use for their joined hands. It turned out that none of it was very complicated at all.

* * *

"So I really want to know," Chris said as they got out of his new car. Danny had talked him into the Audi on the grounds that he could afford it, and it might actually teach him something about responsible car ownership. "What was the exact moment when you realized that if you wanted to get laid on Christmas, you were going to have to come to my mom's party?"

"Fuck off."

Chris laughed and slung an arm around Danny's shoulders, a perfectly acceptable gesture between best friends and work partners. "Admit it. You can smell the pig roasting now."

"If that's a new euphemism, Gains, I think we're at the wrong party." But he could actually smell the roasting pig, delicious in the ocean air, and his rumbling stomach betrayed him a moment later. Chris laughed again as they headed down the beach toward the smoke of the bonfires and a million loudly laughing members of the Gains family.

Chris's mother spotted them first and hurried across the sand to meet them. She should have looked ridiculous in her glittering red dress and flyaway hair, here on the beach in the late afternoon, but she looked elemental and beautiful. Danny felt a swell of pride at his role in getting it for her.

"Christopher! Finally!" she cried when they were in earshot. "I was starting to worry that the criminals had carried you off - or that you had to find some wild horses to drag poor Danny to see us."

"Funny, Mrs. Gains," Danny said, with a smile despite his nerves. He felt like every handprint Chris had left on his skin must be glowing neon, announcing to everyone with eyes that he'd slept with a man, with this man. His whole life had changed in a night; how could it not be obvious to everyone he met?

"He came willingly, I promise." Chris hugged his mother. "Mele Kalikimaka, Mom."

She kissed his cheek, then gestured Danny into her arms for the same treatment. "Mele Kalikimaka, hau'oli makahiki hou."

"Mele Kalikimaka," he murmured back as he embraced her. "And happy New Year to you, too."

"Come on, everyone wants to see you," she said and took both their hands. "I made extra manapua when Chris told me you were coming, Danny. And I think Melly has some flowers for you."

"Danny's scared of her, you know, Mom."

"He should be."

The shorter palm trees glowed with lights and tinsel, growing brighter as the sun dipped down into the ocean. Danny found himself smiling at the aunts and uncles and cousins that swarmed around them, because when Mrs. Gaines let go of his hand, Chris put his arm back around his shoulders. He could deal with this Hawaiian family thing; suddenly it was worth his while.

 

 

 


End file.
